92 known cases of nuclear bombs lost at sea

The history of nuclear weapon accidents is as old as their introduction
The US Department of Defence (DoD) first published a list of nuclear weapon accidents in 1968 which detailed 13 serious nuclear weapon accidents between 1950-1968. An updated list released in 1980 catalogued 32 accidents. At the same time, documents released by the Navy under the Freedom of Information Act cited 381 nuclear weapon incidents between 1965 and 1977.

A number of nuclear cases involve ships or submarines colliding at sea or, in some cases, submarine nuclear power units becoming unstable and the subs having to be abandoned. According to Greenpeace there have been more than 120 submarine accidents since 1956. The most recent incident, in August 2000, was the loss of the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk in the Barents Sea. The Kursk is the seventh nuclear submarine lost, five of them Russian, two American. There are 92 known cases of nuclear bombs lost at sea.

www.didyouknow.org...

I have been researching lost nukes for a little while now, i have some more incident that i would like to put in here but dont have the time at the moment, here is another thread on this topic that i started as well...

Two Atomic Bombs Were Dropped on North Carolina - www.abovetopsecret.com...

And these are just the ones they tell us about...

[edit on 18-2-2009 by Crakeur]

92 missing nukes and no one cares? You are aware that ANYONE with the will and know how can go out there and recover some of them right? What would happen if one washed up on a beach? Would a direct hit by a shipwreck set one off? Why are more people not aware of this? Ill tell you, "they" don't want you to know not only how inept they are, but how an 'ept' person can go retrieve one and own their very own nuke...

I wonder how many treasure hunters have found one and kept quiet...

This is horrible news, you've got to be kidding right?

And we wonder why giant ancient squids are floating dead to the surface, dolphins, whales and sea creatures are dying and stranding in record numbers, and we are losing our precious mother ocean.

No direct hit from shipwreck wouldn't set them off, unless they were the old percussive type detonation.Which they would be rusted to crap by now anyway.
The new ones need codes, electronic detonators.
Even if someone found one, they would need alot of resources to set it off properly to cause maximum damage.

It's no surprise that neither the Russians or Americans are making a song and dance about losing nukes. I hope they've never stopped looking for the two beneath the Arctic ice shelf. In the wake of the Cold War and the collapse of Russia's infrastructure, military went unpaid, soldiers sold equipment etc. There were rumors of missing warheads that have never been accounted for and it's too damaging to National pride to admit too.

I imagine the single greatest factor is plausible deniability. The human and environmental damage could be enormous and the bottom line is always the bottom line Who would take responsibility for loss of life and reparations for the environmental consequences?

So far I'm only thinking about the possibilities of an aging, missing warhead exploding. The political consequences of a serious terrorist action would be terrible. If the US or a US ally had a major city nuked, it's a reasonable bet (based on previous record) that a Middle-East Country would be decimated in response.

Link to a relevant article in de Speigel.

PS. I forgot to add that a British Navy Admiral was explaining yesterday (follwing the nuclear sub collision) that modern nuke warheads cannot detonate without their computer system running over 180 checks. If one diagnostic is the wrong value, the nuke is effectively dead. Even using conventional explosive semtex/C4 or whatever wouldn't work.

Again, it's these older ones that are a concern

[edit on 18-2-2009 by Kandinsky]

reply to post by Grock


We care a lot! That is a really interesting research and I definitely flagged this. Just keep in mind that when you let loose an article at 12AM there isn't a whole lot of traffic for response.

Originally posted by Aakron
reply to post by Grock

 

We care a lot! That is a really interesting research and I definitely flagged this. Just keep in mind that when you let loose an article at 12AM there isn't a whole lot of traffic for response.

Wow. You may have just helped me more with that statement alone than most of ATS has in the past year total. You see, MOST of my posts are done in the middle of the night (its really the only time i get for this) and no wonder some of the more profound threads i do, i get hardly a response. Maybe i'll send some out there again during high traffic times and see what happens... TY

Bump as this topic is important, however very topical as one of them was lost and never recovered just south of Tokyo!

Thats right where all the earthquakes are happening and the Tsunami was there is an rusting missing nuke deep down with the undersea volcanoes!

USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14) in the Pacific Ocean an A-4E Skyhawk strike aircraft carrying a nuclear weapon rolled off an elevator on the U.S. aircraft carrier and fell into the sea. (Japanese island chain of Ryukyu)

1

Kind Regards,

Elf

You know something, how lost can they be when our satellites can pinpoint ocean floors but they cover that up?
Just more plans to pull off worse or hide the real extent of Japans nuclear crisis!

Absolutely crazy! And we say Iran can't be trusted with them

Originally posted by XxRagingxPandaxX
Absolutely crazy! And we say Iran can't be trusted with them

Well Exactly,

I am just wondering what happened to the one by Japan, The precise area was never released but did the earthquake or tsunami move it intriging, tides and such like being conical can roll easily.

The other missing ones what hazards do they pose just not in Radiation but as a complication to an natural disaster like we seeing at the reactors the possibilities are pretty bad.

Kind Regards,

Elf

Originally posted by Grock
92 missing nukes and no one cares?

As I read it it is 92 lost - many of them were recovered.

Ran across this old article looking for info on all the recovered nukes. Hardly any links to those recovered.

Wonder how many are still out there!